Humanverse

Romana vs Romeo

American parents have registered 26,864 Romeos since 1880, against 1,739 Romanas. Romeo is still ahead, with 1,129 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Romana against Romeo, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Romana Romeo

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 136 years in which either name was published, Romeo for 135 years and Romana for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Romana Romeo
Total US births 1,73926,864
Most in one year 531,191
Babies in 2025 61,129
Estimated living today 96024,000
Median age today 5211
Peak year 19282024
Best rank 1,029th girls283rd boys
Rank in 2025 13,208th301st
First recorded 18911880
Girls / boys 1,739 / 00 / 26,864

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Romanas alive today are over 52; half the Romeos are over 11. That is 41 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Romana Romeo
France 18515,055 Roméo
England and Wales 3063,379
Switzerland 671,640
Scotland 25152
Poland 255

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Romana and Romeo.